Repeat

Orange is a very well known and delicious fruit. It’s one of your five a day - but has many other benefits to your skin and wellbeing!

An orange is a well-known fruit within the citrus family that grows on trees all around the world. The sweet orange is a flowering tree with glossy, evergreen leaves and thorny branches, and it is thought to be native to China, and East Asia. The trees now grow all over the world. Botanically, their juicy, edible, orange-coloured fruits are a type of berry called a hesperidium.

Orange juice and oil have astringent, cleansing properties that help the skin and hair to glow.

Oranges contain potassium, folic acid, and large amounts of vitamin C, which together with lutein help improve skin elasticity.

Citrus scents are usually uplifting and refreshing, but the sweetness of oranges tends to be so cheerful that it actually promotes rest. You feel good, therefore you relax.

Orange peel wax is considered a good vegan alternative to lanolin as it has similar emollient, moisturising and emulsifying properties, with a lightweight feel. 

We use orange in many different forms (essential oils, juice, peel, wax…) for different products, and each of them can be purchased in different places around the world. To find out more about our suppliers, browse your Lush product’s list of ingredients and click on the ones you are interested in. This should take you to a page full of details!

Jojoba (pronounced ho-ho-ba) is a good friend to your skin and scalp!

Jojoba oil is obtained by pressing the seeds of the jojoba shrub (Simmondsia chinensis). The plant is native to the Sonoran Desert in Northwest Mexico and Southwest USA, and its deep root system and leathery leaves make it well suited to droughts and intense heat. It can also be cultivated in areas suffering from soil erosion to help improve soil quality.

It is an excellent moisturiser and emollient for the skin and scalp.

It conditions the hair by lightly coating it, adding shine and manageability.

It also has an affinity with our own sebum, so it is readily absorbed by the top layer of the skin and helps balance sebum production.

To find out more about our jojoba oil suppliers, browse your Lush product’s list of ingredients and click on the ones you are interested in. This should take you to a page full of details!

Waxes give cosmetic products a pleasant texture and feel while protecting the skin and hair.

Initially, wax is a substance that resembles beeswax. It’s usually a thick and oily substance, sometimes solid at room temperature, sometimes spreadable. There are many types of waxes, which can be of animal, mineral or plant origin. Here, we’ll focus on the many vegetable waxes that Lush uses, such as rapeseed, rose, sunflower or candelilla wax, to name a few. 

The processes for obtaining vegetable wax are quite different depending on the plant's species and the desired texture and properties. Here are some examples:

Acids - Candelilla wax is infamous for being extracted from a succulent plant with sulfuric acid, a very dangerous material. Luckily, Lush creative buyers have found a supplier that has pioneered a new technique with the less harmful citric acid.

Hydrogenation - This process is frequently used in the vegetable oil industry, improving textures and shelf life. The transformation can range from the slight thickening of an oil, to its solidification into a wax. Soy wax is a good example of this.

Solvents - Take rose absolute. Like all absolutes, it is produced by soaking the raw material (rose petals) in a solvent such as ethanol. This results in a waxy paste called concrete which is ‘washed’ again with solvents to separate the wax from the fragrant rose oil. The oil is called absolute and is sold separately. The remaining wax has a faint scent and retains some of the plant’s properties, which is ideal for cosmetic use.

Benefits will depend on the type of wax but, as a general rule, they give our products a nice texture and shine. They sit lightly on the skin and hair to protect them, giving lustre and softness. Some waxes will be very fine to the touch and hardly felt, others will provide a strong conditioning sensation.

Each wax has its very own story! To find out more, browse your Lush product’s list of ingredients and click on the ones you are interested in. This should take you to a page full of details.

Let castor oil put a nice soothing spell on your skin and scalp!

The evergreen castor bean shrub (Ricinus communis) is considered native to eastern Africa. Castor oil is produced by cold-pressing the seeds and goes through a clarification process by heating before use. The oil is a colourless, odourless and tasteless pale yellow liquid. 

Castor oil is both antibacterial and soothing.

It takes care of the scalp so well that it allows hair follicles to develop strong and healthy hair.

It has been used medicinally around the world for thousands of years, mostly to treat skin conditions such as eczema or psoriasis, as well as burns or acne.

It can be mixed with sodium hydroxide along with other vegetable oils to create a thick and stable soap base.

‘Castor’ means beaver in French!

To find out more about our suppliers, browse your Lush product’s list of ingredients and click on castor oil. This should take you to a page full of details!

It pays to recycle with us! Return the packaging for this product to any a Lush shop and receive money towards your next purchase. Alternatively, return 5 qualifying items packaging for a free fresh face mask.

Your order will be expertly protected against impact during transit by biodegradable Eco-Pops, compostable packaging nuggets made from potato starch! They're easily dissolvable in water or soil.

Fresh cosmetic ingredients are more effective on skin, hair, and mind than heavily preserved beauty products. 65% of our raw material spend is on natural ingredients.